Pretoria - Communications Minister Faith Muthambi will visit Keimoes in the Northern Cape after the first batch of government subsidised set-top boxes (STBs) was installed there in December 2015.
About 76% of tv-viewing households have registered for government subsidised STBs in the Northern Cape. Since the beginning of the registration process on 1 October 2015, the uptake of STBs is steadily gaining traction. The registration process for these devices has now spread to other provinces.
Minister Muthambi said: “The community around the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) area is now enjoying high-definition and good quality television, thanks to the broadcasting digital migration project.
“As the department, we don’t just install boxes and leave. We also provide post-installation services to ensure that people are satisfied with the devices and the new offering. This is one of the requirements for this project.”
In December last year, Minister Muthambi installed the first batch of STBs for poor TV-owning households in the SKA communities of Keimoes and Kai Garib, making them the first South Africans to experience digital terrestrial television (DTT) in the country.
The SKA area in the Northern Cape was identified as the place where DTT will start and earlier this month, DTT took another step forward when the country entered the dual illumination phase. Dual illumination (simulcast) is the period when the new digital television signal and the old analogue signal are transmitted at the same time.
The Minister said this period further seeks to ensure that all citizens of South Africa have ample time to install the digital STBs required to receive digital television transmissions.
She said at the end of the dual illumination period, all analogue television broadcasts will cease, yielding a digital dividend that will be utilised to launch new broadband and broadcasting services. - SAnews.gov.za
